Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense who pounded the war drums loudly and proudly during the George W. Bush era, is a man who likes to play with words.

At times during the interview-profile of Rumsfeld in director Errol Morris' "The Unknown Known," Rummie, as W. called him, comes across as some sort of Lewis Carroll wannabe. He dickers over the precise definition and usage of words such as "insurgents" and "quagmire." When he's not picking nits, he quotes some of his best bits of intentionally foggy logic such as: "All generalizations are false, including this one."

Or, how about this mumbo-jumbo beaut: "The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

Then there is the humdinger he delivered at a White House press conference when the Iraq War was not going swimmingly for the occupying forces: "There are known knowns. There are known unknowns. There are unknown unknowns. But there are also unknown knowns; that is to say, things that you think you know that it turns out you did not."

Rumsfeld is not exactly Confucius when it comes to being quick, clever and clear.

And that is what makes "The Unknown Known," which is being shown this weekend by the Tallahassee Film Society, such a frustrating and maddening documentary to watch. Rumsfeld knows he's toying with Morris, who knows he is being toyed with. The player is getting played and vice versa.

By the end of the aggravating "Unknown Known," Morris asks Rumsfeld point-blank why he agreed to the interview.

"Damned if I know," Rumsfeld says in a rare moment of direct clarity.

Morris, who made his populist masterpiece "Vernon, Florida" (1981) in North Florida, has interviewed war lords before. He won an Oscar for dissecting the Vietnam War architect Robert S. McNamara in the soul-searching "The Fog of War" (2003). The director should have saved that "Fog" title for his Rumsfeld movie because it's more fitting.

Because Morris is dealing with such a smart, cagey subject, "Unknown Known" emerges as an unfinished, blurred portrait of Rumsfeld. The viewer does learn, however, that Rumsfeld was one ambitious, ladder-climbing careerist when he first arrived as a congressman in Washington in the early '60s. He quickly worked his way up the chain of command.

Rumsfeld was in Richard Nixon's inner circle at the White House, where Tricky Dick and H.R. Haldeman thought of him fair-weather opportunist who would jump ship when the going got rough. George Herbert Walker Bush thought Rumsfeld was too much of a hawk. Hey, didn't that Bush start the first war with Iraq?

While McNamara expressed guilt and sadness over his role in the Vietnam War, Rumsfeld comes across as a fellow who sleeps just fine at night and is not haunted by anything he was responsible for in Iraq.

When asked if it might have been better if the United States had not attacked Iraq, Rumsfeld answers with, "Time will tell."

Yes, it will.

If you go

What: The Tallahassee Film Society presents "The Unknown Known." It runs 102 minutes and is not rated (some profanity, images of war)